James’ first century!

Who biked 100 miles for the first time in his life this weekend? This guy!

(and look how happy he is about it!:)

That’s right. For more than a year now, James has been talking about riding a century, but it’s never really worked out. Last summer his back was injured, and what with the craziness of my summer work schedule (plus lots of awesome visits from various friends and family:), we haven’t really had time this year for long rides. BUT! Yesterday we made it happen.

Even though I was uncharacteristically grumpy about planning a route for us at the last minute (we decided to ride 100 miles on Saturday on… Friday night around 9pm), once we settled on taking a variation of the Portland-Ripplebrook-Portland OR Randonneurs route I felt better about it. Thanks, David and Ed, for planning a route that I’m now becoming an expert on:) We also decided, because James had a work party in the middle of the afternoon, that we’d ride about 85 miles, come home, shower/become presentable, and then ride the other 15 on the way to and from the party.

So there it was. 100 miles for a fellow whose normal bike-in-a-day complement is about 8. Nice work, James!:)

(James finishing his 100th mile! Woohoo!:)

It was kind of nice to break up the 100 miles into a few chunks–I want to remember that for the future, for anyone else I drag on rides longer than they thought were possible. Taking breaks in the middle makes any biking distance more feasible. Plus, lots of stretching, fun lunch/berry-picking stops, a go-at-whatever-pace-you-want sort of mentality, and good conversation makes for a lovely ride, however long it may be.

So it turns out 100 miles on a bike is totally possible, even if you don’t go out and train for it or really even take long rides that much at all. Just ask James: 100 miles was not even possible, it was possible enough that he could still get back on his bike today to ride Sunday Parkways:)

4 Comments:

  1. Yay, good for James! Are you trying to lure him into randonerdery, or does he have the good sense to stay /far/ away from it?

  2. I knew he had it in him-he comes from good stock- and what an example he has daily! Thanks.

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